City of art deco, beautiful parks and cafés....
Lina has kindly agreed to write this blog entry:
When my mum (Heidi) asked me wether I would want to visit them over Himmelfahrt in Riga I immediately said yes. As it was chance for me to visit a new country - and of course seeing them again after the Athens - Istanbul cycling stretch and the family gathering in May. Luckily I found a flight connection which would take me directly to Riga (and not over Poland or half of Scandinavia).
In Riga my mum picked me up from the airport and after buying tickets we took the bus. Unfortunately we only had one day in Riga and it wasn’t nearly enough time to see all of Riga. When we arrived in the old part of Riga we reunited with Andreas (as he didn’t come to the airport because he was searching for bike rental shops) and looked for something to eat before doing anything touristic. And if you know me you know how I’m interested in anything which is connected to food. So after looking at the menu I noticed two things: 1. They use a lot of rye bread in all kind of recipes (beverages & desserts) and 2. They eat a lot of fish and meat.
When we finished eating we visited the cathedral and then decided to do a boat trip.
We couldn’t really enjoy the boat trip completely as it was quite windy and therefore very cold. So when the boat trip finished we needed to warm up in a café.
We did want to visit the Jugendstilmuseum, but as we were too late it was already closed. However we did get the chance to look at the staircase and the flowers that were painted on the wall.
The next day we packed our stuff and decided to visit the Jewish Museum. (info on jewish museum). In the afternoon we rented a bicycle for me and started our journey towards our destination Saulkrasti. However we didn’t make it that far, as we had to go through the woods. And as it was very sandy we couldn’t really cycle. Which is the perfect start for a cycling tour...
On a positive note we did see the Baltic Sea!
As a result of the difficulty of the cycling path we didn’t make it that far and we had to wild camp.